Shillong, Nov 27: Meghalaya Government is discussing the final plans to operationalize flights from Shillong Airport in Umroi and Delhi as the government is trying hard to start the air service before the year-end.
After meeting officials from FlyBig and Transport department here on Friday, Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma informed reporters that the State Government is making due efforts to obtain air operators permit from the Union civil aviation ministry at the earliest to make this a reality.
Although he did not give any assurance on the starting date of flight, he said, “We are hopeful that all the permission will be received very soon from aviation ministry. We are hopeful that flight will start soon. I don’t say anything right now in terms of date but I am hopeful that very soon we will be able to start the flight.”
Discussed the final plans to operationalise flights from Shillong to Delhi with officials from FlyBig & Transport Dept. Efforts are on to obtain the Air Operators Permit from @MoCA_GoI at the earliest. Looking forward to launching the Delhi-Shillong flight soon.@HardeepSPuri pic.twitter.com/UdsiRD93HA
— Conrad Sangma (@SangmaConrad) November 26, 2020
The State Government is presently waiting for the paperwork and the formalities to be completed as the FlyBig team also paid a visit to the Umroi airport to survey.
“We are waiting for the paperwork and permission to be done,” the Chief Minister said.
An official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said FlyBig would have to get the nod from AAI to operate from the Umroi airport and initially would fly on three routes. ‘FlyBig’ is the new name in domestic airline focusing its routes on UDAN through the regional connectivity scheme of the central government.
The routes, which will operate initially in the Northeast, are Guwahati-Pasighat (Arunachal Pradesh), Guwahati-Tezu (Arunachal Pradesh)-Imphal, and Tezpur (Assam)-Lengpui (Mizoram).
Meanwhile, Indigo Airlines that was operating a Shillong-Kolkata flight is yet to announce the resumption of their services
Earlier, the Meghalaya chief minister had announced that the Shillong-Delhi flight would take off from the next month.
